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A MEMOIR 



OP THE LATE 



Col. Joliii Eager Howard, 



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RE-PRINTEn FROM THK 



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Of Mondav. October 15th, 1827. 



B ALTIilORE: 
PRIxNTED BY KELLY, HEDIAN & PIET. 

PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLEBS AND STATIONERS, 

N (J . 17 4 Baltimore S t r r k t 
1863. 







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A MEMOIR 



OP THE LATE 



Col. John Eager Howard, 



RE-PRINTED FROM THE 



Mttt, 



Of Monday, October 15th, 1827. 



BALTIMORE: 
PRINTED BY KELLY, HEDIAN & PIET, 

PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS AKD STATIONERS, 

No. 174 Baltimobb Stuebt. 
1863. 



A. MEMOIR 



OF THE LATE 



COL. JOHN EAGER HOWARD. 



John Eager Howard was born on the 4th of June, 1752, 
in Baltimore County, in this state. His grand-father^ 
Joshua Howard, an Englishman by birth, having, while 
yet very young, left his father's house in the vicinity of 
Manchester, to join the army of the Duke of York, subse- 
quently James II., during Monmouth's insurrection, was 
afterwards afraid to encounter his parent's displeasure, and 
came to seek his fortune in America. This was in the year 
1685-86. He obtained a grant of the land in Baltimore 
County, on which Col. Howard was born, and which is still 
in the family, and married Miss Joanna 0' Carroll, whose 
father had lately emigrated from Ireland. Cornelius, one 
of his sons by this lady, and father of the subject of this 
sketch, married Miss Ruth Eager, the grand-daughter of 
George Eager, whose estate adjoined, and now makes a 
considerable part of this city. The Eagers came from Eng- 
land, probably soon after the Charter to Lord Baltimore, 
but the records afford little information prior to 1668, when 
the estate near Baltimore was purchased. 

John Eager Hoavard, not educated for any particular pro- 
fession, was determined to that of arms by the circumstances 
of his country. One of the first measures of defence adopted 
by the colonies against the mother country, was the assem- 
blage of bodies of the militia, termed flying camps. One 



of these was formed in Maryland in 1776, and Mr. Howard 
was apjjointed to a Captaincy in the regiment of Colonel J. 
Carvil Hall. His commission, signed by Matthew Tilgh- 
MAN, the President of the Convention of Maryland, is dated 
the 25th of June, 1776, a few days after he had completed 
his twenty-fourth year. This corps was dismissed, however, 
in the December of the same year, Congress having required 
of each of the states to furnish a certain portion of regular 
troops, as a more effective system of defence. On the or- 
ganization of the seven regiments which were to be furnish- 
ed by Maryland, Captain Howard, who had been retained 
by the wish of the Commissioners empowered to appoint 
officers, rather than his own, was promoted to a Majority 
in one of them, the Fourth, under his former commander. 
Colonel Hall. His commission is dated the 10th of April, 
1777. On the 1st of June, 1779, he was appointed Lieu- 
tenant Colonel of the Fifth, and in the following spring he 
was transferred to the Sixth ; and finally, after the battle 
of Hobkick's Hill, he succeeded to the command of the 
Second, in consequence of the death of Lieutenant Colonel 
Ford, who never recovered of a wound received in that 
battle. 

Of the services of Colonel Howard during these years, 
and throughout the war, we have not limits, nor is it neces- 
sary to speak. In the chivalrous and hazardous operations 
of Greene in the South, he was one of his most efficient 
and conspicuous coadjutors. That gallant General, an exact 
discriminator of merit, pronounced him as good an officer 
as the world afforded ; to have the best disposition, and 
correspondent ability to promote the service ; and to have 
conferred great obligations on himself, and greater on the 
public. " He deserves," said Greene, " a statue of gold no 
less than Eoman and Grecian heroes." " At the battle of 
Cowpens," says Lee, "he seized the critical moment, and 
turned the fortune of the day : He was alike conspicuous, 
though not alike successful, at Guilford and the Eutaws ; 
and at all times, and on all occasions, eminently useful." 
Besides the battles just mentioned, he was in the engage- 
ments of White Plains, of Germantown, of Monmouth, 



Camden, Hobkick's Hill, and others which may be known 
to our readers. Having been trained to the infantry ser- 
vice, he was always employed in that line, and was dis- 
tinguished for pushing into close battle, and with fixed 
bayonet ; an honorable evidence of his intrepidity, as it is 
well known how seldom bayonets are actually crossed in 
battle, even with the most veteran troops. It was at Cow- ^ 
pens that this mode of fighting was resorted to for the first | 
time in the war ; and the Maryland Line was so frequently j 
afterwards put to this service, as almost to annihilate that 
gallant corps. In this battle Colonel Howard, at one time, 
had in his hands the swords of seven officers who had 
surrendered to him personally. During the engagement, 
having ordered some movement of one of the flank com- 
panies, it was mistaken by the men for an order to retreat. 
While the line was in the act of falling back, Morgan rode 
up to him exclaiming, " that the day was lost." " Look at 
that line," replied Colonel Howard, "men who can retreat 
in such order, are not beaten." Morgan then pointed out a 
position which he ordered him to take, and make a stand ; 
but halting his men, and facing them about, he poured in 
a sudden fire on the enemy, and then, on his own responsi- 
bility, dashed on them with the bayonet. It was on this 
occasion that he saved the life of the British General, / 
O'Hara, whom he found clinging to his stirrup, and claim- ( 
ing quarter. O'Hara afterwards addressed to him several ] 
letters, thanking him for his life. 

Colonel Howard continued in his command till the army 
was disbanded, when he retired to his patrimonial estate 
near this city. He soon after married Margaret Chew, the 
daughter of Benjamin Chew, of Philadelphia ; a lady whose 
courteous manners and elegant hospitality will long be re- 
membered by the society of this place, of which, as well as 
of the best company throughout the country, her house was 
the gay and easy resort. In November, 1788, Col. Howard 
was chosen the Governor of Maryland, which post he filled 
ibr three years ; and having in the autumn of 1796, been 
elected to the Senate of the United States, to fill the vacancy 
occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Potts, he was, the 



6 

same session, chosen for the full term of service, which 
expired on the 4th of March, 1803. 

The fortunate situation of Colonel Howard's estate, in 
the immediate vicinity of Baltimore, not only placed him 
above the want which has pursued the old age of too many 
of our veterans, but was the foundation of subsequent opu- 
lence. The inconsiderable town which, at the close of the 
war, numbered less than ten thousand souls, has since, 
under the influences of that liberty which he aided in assert- 
ing, expanded to a city of seventy-two thousand, embracing 
by degrees within its growing streets, the venerable shades 
which sheltered the retired soldier. Instead of the deep 
forest, the precipitous hills, and the unwholesome marshes, 
in which commerce tempted our ancestors to plant them- 
selves, his mansion now overlooks a large and busy mart of 
men, of which every rising dome and tower is in some sort 
a monument of his own successful patriotism. An old age 
warmed and enlivened by such topics of grateful reflection, 
is the most enviable of the conditions of human life, as well 
as an object of the utmost veneration and regard. Towards 
the soldier of the Cowpens this regard was felt, not only by 
his immediate neighbors, and by his former companions in 
arms, but by the most eminent worthies of his day. The 
^'Father of his Country," in more than one letter, expressed 
to him his confidence and esteem. In one, he regrets Col. 
Howard's declining to accept a post, as a loss both to him- 
self and to the public, and requests in another, the interpo- 
sition of a gentleman in Philadelphia, to induce the Colo- 
nel's acceptance. " Had your inclination," says Washing- 
ton, in his letter to Colonel Howard, " and private pursuits 
permitted j''ou to take the office that was oficred to you, it 
would have been a very pleasing circumstance to me, and I 
am persuaded, as I observed to you on a former occasion, a 
very acceptable one to the public. But the reasons which 
you have assigned for not doing so, carry conviction along 
with them, and must, hoivever reluctantly, be submitted to." 

At his death, Col. Howard was, we believe, the highest 
officer in rank in the Continental Service, except General 
Lafayette. He himself did not know of any other, — Gen. 



Sumter, who is still living, having been an officer of militia, \ 
and without any Continental commission. 

The character of Colonel Howard partook of the strength 
of the school in which it -vyas trained. His first lessons, 
received in the thoughtful infancy of our country, had im- 
bued his mind with the nervous and unadorned wisdom of 
the time. His manhood, hardened in the stormy season of 
the revolution, was taught patience by privation, and virtue 
by common example. By his worth he had won the painful 
station of a champion who was not to be spared from the 
field of action, and his sense of duty was too peremptory to 
permit him to refuse the constant requisitions of this peril- 
ous honor. In the camp, therefore, amidst the accidents of 
war, his moral constitution acquired the hardihood, and his 
arm the prowess, of ancient chivalry. He reached in safety 
the close of that anxious struggle, with a mind braced by 
calamity, and familiarized to great achievements. It threw 
him on the world in the vigor of his days, gifted with the 
qualities of a provident, brave, temperate and inflexible 
patriot. The characteristics thus acquired, never faded in 
subsequent life. Pursued by an unusual share of honor and 
regard as a founder of the liberties of his country, he was 
never, beguiled by the homage it attracted. A fortune that 
might be deemed princely, was never used to increase the 
lustre of his station, or the weight of his authority, but wa.s 
profusely dispensed in public benefactions, and acts of mu- 
nificence. With the allurements of power continually so- 
liciting his ambition, he never threw himself into the public 
service but when the emergencies of the state left him no 
privilege of refusal. Under such conditions only, he ad- 
ministered the grave duties of office, with an integrity, 
wisdom and justice, that gave to his opinions an authentic 
and absolute sway. 

Amidst the frantic agitations of party, which for a series 
of years convulsed the nation, he almost alone in his gene- 
ration, won the universal confidence. The most inveterate 
popular prejudices seemed to yield to the affectionate con- 
viction of his impregnable honesty, his unblenching love 
of country, and that personal independence which neither 






8 

party zeal could warp from its course, nor passion subvert, 
nor faction alarm ; and in their bitterest exacerbations, his 
fellow-citizens of all ranks turned towards him as to a foun- 
tain of undefiled patriotism. In private life he was distin- 
guished for the amenity of his manners, his hospitality, 
and his extensive and useful knowledge. He possessed a 
memory painfully minute ; and a love of information that 
never sank under the labor of acquisition. These faculties 
rendered him, perhaps, the most accurate repository of the 
history of his own time, in this or any other country. His 
habits of life were contemplative, cautious, scrupulously 
just, and regulated by the strictest method. 

Few men have enjoyed a more enviable lot ; his youth 
distinguished in the field, his age in the council, and every 
period solaced by the attachment of friends. Affluent in 
fortune, as rich in public regard, and blessed in his domestic 
and personal associations, he has glided away from the small 
band of his compatriots, as full of honors as of years. The 
example of such a citizen is a legacy to his country, of more 
worth than the precepts of an age. 



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